Humans that Betray, Animals that are Betrayed

In a 2019 article for The Journal of Ethics, Steve Cooke argues that humans commit morally problematic acts against nonhuman animals without giving much notice to them. Particularly, these acts manifest in the trusting relationships humans develop with animals they instrumentalize for scientific or agricultural purposes. Humans cultivate relationships with animals, where they are lured into a sense of security and develop an expectation that the humans handling them have goodwill. Humans use these relationships, however, to get animals to comply with procedures that ultimately preclude the securement of their most fundamental interests. In so doing, humans undermine the trust that animals place in them. This, Cooke argues, is unscrupulous behavior to which we normally pay no mind when assessing the immorality of animal testing or factory farming.

I feel as though this is a massively important argument, for two reasons primarily. The first reason is that the morally problematic behavior does not rely upon the acceptance of the contentious claim that nonhuman animals have moral worth that is tantamount to that of their human counterparts. Rather, Cooke zeroes in on the existence of a character flaw that is illuminated when a human manipulates and takes advantage of a being that is capable of having beliefs about one’s intentions. Very few people, I imagine, would contend that nonhuman animals like dogs or cats are incapable of having beliefs about the intentions of their caretakers. It seems incontrovertible (to me, anyways) that my cat has beliefs about my attitude toward him when he makes a mess on the carpet of my apartment. Certainly, he also has beliefs about my attitude toward him generally, given that he finds himself curled up comfortably beside me, purring as though he has no worry in the world. I would be doing something wrong were I to pick him up during this vulnerable moment and throw him against the wall, not only because it is wrong to do this to a living creature but also because I am betraying the trust he has so clearly placed in me as his caretaker.

This argument also forces individuals who typically care little for the welfare of nonhuman animals to admit that even if they are not comparable in kind to humans, they traffic in an enterprise that is morally relevant—namely, the enterprise of trust. If an individual’s ability to cultivate, respect, and maintain trust is relevant in assessing the type of moral agent they are, then it follows that those whom they cultivate, respect, and maintain trust in are objects on which moral worth hinges. How we interact with animals, then, tells us a lot more about our character than we’d care to admit. And if this is the case, the burden to treat animals with decency becomes substantially greater. For not only would we be under the typical strictures to treat animals with kindness and to abstain from treating them with cruelty, but we would also have to be weary of the ways in which we “use” them such that we never embolden them to trust us when we know we would only end up subverting the trust.

Some who insist that we focus on disseminating those arguments which demand that people recognize the equal moral standing of nonhuman animals could argue that Cooke’s argument, for these reasons, fails to get at the primary wrong committed in against nonhuman animals who are used as tools in medical testing sites and in factory farms. But I think it is important to remember that peoples’ attitudes regarding the moral standing of nonhuman animals are slow to change. Many are unbothered by the blatant speciesism that is wrapped up in the belief that human beings, by virtue of being homo sapiens, ought to be accorded robust moral consideration that is afforded no other living being on earth. For this reason, it is important to seize on this distinction and to insist that humans not only enjoy greater privilege because of their unique moral standing, but that they also are burdened with greater responsibility. It has long since been the time that Kant argued that:

“If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.”

Though this argument is frustrating for obvious reasons, it is important because its correlative attitudes have been woven into the fabric of social attitudes toward nonhuman animals. Because of this, many Westerners generally adopt a cruelty-kindness view when it comes to the treatment of their nonhuman counterparts. Perhaps Cooke’s argument will give people reason for pause the next time they take advantage of an animal.